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Jessica DaSilva cradles her injured baby, Adriel Garcia, in a taxi to Sick Kids hospital in September 2010. Her boyfriend is accused of second-degree murder in the baby's death. Taxi cab photos are exhibits in the trial. (Court exhibit)

Ronnie Munoz-Hernandez, accused of second-degree murder in baby Adriel Garcia's death, in a taxi on the way to Sick Kids hospital in Sept. 2010. Taxi cab photos are exhibits in the trial. (Court exhibit)

The mother of murdered five-month-old Adriel Garcia initially concocted an elaborate lie for police about who took care of her son the day before he was rushed to the hospital unconscious, she admitted in court Thursday.

Jessica DaSilva, 23, also said she lied to her friends and family about who was taking care of her son while she attended a family wedding.

DaSilva’s boyfriend at the time Ronnie Munoz-Hernandez, 25, is on trial for second-degree murder, accused of causing the severe head injury that killed Adriel in the fall of 2010.

He was babysitting the child — but left him alone three times in the apartment, according to crown attorney Laura Bird.

“You know how to tell a story don’t you?” defence lawyer Paula Rochman asked DaSilva after going through the initial story she told the police about who had looked after her child the day before.

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“Yes,” said DaSilva.

Rochman suggested a vastly different account than DaSilva of what happened the day before Adriel was taken to the hospital with a catastrophic brain injury, covered head to toe in bruises.

Rochman suggested that DaSilva deliberately kept Adriel away from her family and friends the day before he died because the baby already had bruises and marks on her body.

“You knew someone would report you,” said Rochman.

That’s why she left Adriel with Munoz-Hernandez while she went to the family wedding, said Rochman.

Munoz-Hernandez told DaSilva he was going out that day and not to leave Adriel at the apartment, but she did anyway, “with no concerns about your son, you didn’t even think about him,” Rochman said.

DaSilva says that Munoz-Hernandez volunteered to look after the baby — though he had never before fed or changed the little boy.

DaSilva admitted that she told her family her cousin was babysitting.

“I don’t know,” said DaSilva when asked why she lied. She later answered that her family would not like that she had left her baby with someone who was not his father.

Rochman suggested that DaSilva returned from the wedding reception in the early morning drunk and Munoz-Hernandez told her he had fallen with Adriel.

DaSilva picked up Adriel and shook him in frustration, then moved his playpen from next to the mattress where Munoz-Hernandez moved it, Rochman suggested.

DaSilva denied this and says she had no memory of Munoz-Hernandez saying he’d fallen with the baby.

DaSilva had testified Wednesday that she arrived home, saw that Adriel appeared to be sleeping in his playpen and only realized there was a problem the next morning when Munoz-Hernandez checked on the baby.

Thursday, Rochman questioned why — when noticing her baby was unresponsive and limp — she undressed the child and changed his diaper and clothes.

DaSilva told the court she took off Adriel’s pajamas to see what was wrong — and that’s when she first saw the extensive bruising, including on his penis, and an apparent bitemark on his side.

She told police that she changed him into different clothes because there was milk on the pajamas. The clothes were just next to him, she added Thursday.

Rochman suggested that she took about ten minutes to get ready to go to the hospital with Adriel — while Munoz-Hernandez kept asking her to hurry up.

DaSilva testified that Munoz-Hernandez asked her to lie to the police about who had been looking after Adriel. He told her to say the babysitter was a Mexican 23-year-old named Clara who lived near St. Clair and Dufferin.

DaSilva did say this to police both at the hospital and in an hour-long video statement made while her son was “actively dying” at Sick Kids Hospital.

But, Rochman, points out, her story was far more elaborate than those four details. She told police Clara wore fake nails, always wore her dark hair down, had a 25-year-old boyfriend named Joshua and worked with her as a cleaner at the Nestle building.

She claimed she tried to call Clara several times before leaving the apartment building but she didn’t pick up. She gave police a cellphone number for Clara that was actually an old number that belonged to her or Ronny, said Rochman.

After returning to the hospital, DaSilva called police to recant her statement.

She told police it was her boyfriend Munoz-Hernandez who had been caring for her son the day before.

Rochman suggested that DaSilva was unhappy as a single mom attending school, and would pinch Adriel in frustration causing bruises.

DaSilva denied this. In tears, at the end of her testimony she told the court that she would never have harmed her baby.

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